Riyadi, as the tale continues, supposedly had 750,000 tons of gold backing the $15 trillion the United States took from him to prop up the U.S. dollar.
I wasn't aware that the US was still on the gold standard or that we had mined 750,000 tons of gold...
Edit: More fun information at bottom of page. Of course, I'm sure it's a conspiracy to rob the unknown trillionaire.
The first search result for ”Yohannes Riyadi” is, curiously enough, a Web page from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York titled “Scams Involving the Federal Reserve Name.”
“The Federal Reserve is aware of a fraudulent scam,” the page reads, “involving individuals using the names Yohannes Riyadi and/or Wilfredo Saurin, or persons claiming to be representatives of these two men.”
“In a typical version of this scam, Mr. Riyadi and/or his delegates falsely claim that they have on deposit with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York several U.S. Treasury Checks issued to Mr. Riyadi amounting to billions of dollars. … The fraudulent scheme includes multiple documents which purport to have the signatures of various Federal Reserve officials, including Chairman Ben Bernanke.”
So it emerges that the name “Yohannes Riyadi” is synonymous with the names of various apocryphal Nigerian princes whose spam emails promise riches in exchange for help moving their inheritances to American banks.
It’s a good thing — for the British, at least — that Lord James apparently doesn’t have a computer.